CH 290

Gigolo [Part 1]

“What are you talking about, Carlos?”

Joshua doubted his own hearing.

“As I said, the Empire seems to be focusing on strengthening its army these days.”

The Rothschild Company had long scattered their spies all over the world. The spy assigned to the Empire, a man called Carlos, was suddenly summoned back to the Kingdom with haste.

A tall man with chiseled features was currently standing before Joshua. He let his long curly olive hair down as he fiddled with it casually.

“Army… It means their opponent won’t be monsters, you know? I assume you understood what it meant when you reported those words.”

No country would refer to their monster-fighting forces as military. It’s called “hunters” in the Kingdom while “samurais” in Imperial Japan.

“I knew at least that much. I’m reporting it to you now because I understood that. The Empire has been putting effort into strengthening its army.”

Carlos threw his signature flirtatious sidelong glance at Joshua for absolutely no reason while running his hand through his hair.

“They prepared a ship painted in all black to camouflage at night and pieces of equipment to shoot out iron shells called… artillery(?) They are stowing all the dangerous stuff into the ship.”

‘Just what are they planning to attack when they loaded that many weapons into their ships… Monsters don’t appear in the sea…’ thought Carlos while tilting his head.

“Does this mean that the Empire finally began its attempt to invade another country…”

Joshua voiced out what he had been vaguely worried about recently. He was just about to gather information discreetly because his concern seemed like it would become a reality just by saying it out loud. But before he could even start investigating in detail, Carlos’s report already told him that his guess had been spot on all along.

“Invading another country… you said? But there are humans in that country, you know?”

[Invasion] was originally a word that was only used between monsters and humans.

Monsters broke inside the barrier and invaded the land humans lived in.

Humans expanded the barrier using a magician’s magic and invaded the habitat of monsters.

Humans invading other humans’ land (country)… That idea itself is unthinkable.

Carlos was greatly perplexed when he heard Joshua’s mutters.

“It’s inevitable, isn’t it? Humans are also animals. Attacking another group so one’s own people can survive is not an impossible thing. It’s just that it has never happened before because the distance between each group was too far apart…”

Joshua replied without hesitation with a grim face he would never show to Emma.

“Aren’t the countries still far apart even now? Even though countries have lived by supporting each other without any dispute for hundreds of years… why would they decide to do such a thing… so suddenly…”

‘The Kingdom women are beautiful, the Empire’s women are charming, Balitunese women are gentle… Every country is different, but each is wonderfully distinct in its own way.

For a fight between countries to happen…’ The spy Carlos had been a member of the Rothschild Company for many years, so he knew better than anyone else how outstanding Joshua was. If such a resourceful Joshua envisioned a hellish future, that hell would happen in reality. Still, Carlos found it hard to believe that a frightening future awaited them.

“The countries are far apart from each other, but ironically, the remarkable development of shipbuilding technology has reduced that distance. We can now travel back and forth between countries at an unprecedented speed. As bigger ships were made, the cargo capacity also increased significantly.”

Ships became able to transport enough soldiers and weapons to invade a country.